Mary+Balcznska

On June 5, 1915, 25-year-old homemaker Mary Balcznska (or Balczynski) died at Chicago's St. Bernard's Hospital from an abortion perpetrated by midwife Veronika Rypczyski who was arrested and held by the Coroner on June 10. The case never went to trial.

Mary was the daughter of German immigrants Nyo Chojnacki or Thos Choznocho and Mary Ghochiwez or Chochwicz.

Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good.

In fact, due to improvements in addressing these problems, maternal mortality in general (and abortion mortality with it) fell dramatically in the 20th Century, decades before //Roe vs. Wade// legalized abortion across America.

For more information about early 20th Century abortion mortality, see [|Abortion Deaths 1910-1919].



 For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion] Source: Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database



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